Conventionally, a component mounter is available which attaches a component onto a substrate by picking up and holding with a nozzle the component fed to a component feeding unit, conveying the component above the substrate, and putting the component down. Components which are relatively small among the components fed to the component mounter are fed in a state being held in an array in long tape called carrier tape. The carrier tape has rectangular container space, called cavities or the like, intermittently arranged in the longitudinal direction, and each cavity contains one component. The component mounter accurately replicates positions of the cavities by forwarding the carrier tape at an accurate pitch, thereby picking up and holding components disposed in the cavities with nozzles.
In spite of the further miniaturization in electronic components associated with the miniaturization of electronic equipment in recent years, forms of cavities of carrier tape are standardized. This makes it difficult to pick up and hold-miniature components well with nozzles in some cases, since miniature components (miniature chip components in size of 1005, 0603, and 0402, for example) are unevenly disposed in the cavities due to variation in dimensional tolerance of the cavities and the components.
Therefore, Patent Literature (PTL) 1 discloses a technique by which a pickup position of a component is determined based on image information obtained by imaging a component to be picked up in a cavity of carrier tape.
Based on the above technique, it has been believed that defects caused by the difficulties in picking up and holding a miniature component with a nozzle can be suppressed. Such difficulties include failing to hold the component and holding the component at a tilt.